Archive for the ‘Cruise West’ Category

118 New Ships Since 2000 – Ship Sizes – The New Panama Canal

Atlantic Crossing, Caribbean, Carnival Cruise Lines, Celebrity Cruises, Costa Cruises, Cruise West, Crystal Cruises, Cunard Line, Disney Cruise Lines, Fred Olsen, Hapag LLoyd, Holland America Line, MSC, News, Norwegian Cruise Lines, P&O, Panama Canal, Royal Caribbean, Uncategorized | Posted by cruisepeople
Jun 18 2010

by Mark Tre’

The recent announcement by CLIA that 118 new cruise ships had been delivered since 2000 has led us to have a look at how the world cruise fleet is now made up and how it has changed in the last decade. The findings, along with progress now being made on a new Panama Canal, are rather interesting. Large ships, nay huge ships, have now become the norm. And like the trade of the world, the type of passenger attracted to each size of ship is surely quite different.


118 New Cruise Ships Since 2000
In January, Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) published an interesting statistic. It said that 118 new cruise ships had been introduced to the world fleet since 2000. That is very close to one ship a month, every month, year round for a decade. While there has been a slowdown during the recession, orders are starting again and it is worthwhile to have a look at how this massive new fleet is composed. To do this, in order to give the fleet a different perspective, we are going to look at how the fleet is divided in the same terms used for cargo ships, working from the largest down.

The Capesize Ships
In cargo ship terms, Capesize ships are the next size up from Suezmax, the latter being ships that are too wide or deep for the Panama Canal but can still use the Suez. Capesize ships, however, always have to navigate via the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. Length and beam are not a problem in the Suez Canal, but draught is limited to 62 feet.

As cruise ships carry passengers and not heavy cargoes, this is not a problem for them, as even RMS Queen Mary 2 has only a draught of 32 feet 10 inches, which means that there is really no such thing as a "Suezmax" cruise ship. In the container trades these ships tend to be known as "post-Panamax" (a Panamax ship can carry up to 5,000 twenty-foot equivalent containers while a post-Panamax can carry up to 12,000 (although there is also now a design for a 20,000-unit vessel).

Capesize cargo ships ten to carry large cargoes of low-value goods such as coal and iron ore, of ports they can serve is severely restricted by their size. The same is of course true of Capesize cruise ships that cannot enter many cruise ports because of their own size, but the huge advantage they offer is that they can bring down rates because of economies of scale. Indeed, the same applies to Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas, which carry 6,000 passengers each but limit themselves to the same more on board activities such as ziplines and high diving and their ports, which they visit on a repetitive basis all the year round, feature things such as roller coaster rides and chair lifts. Despite the fact that they offer huge loft suites, these ships must cater to the mass market with their low unit costs in order to stay full.

Where Capesize cargo ships are typically above 150,000 tons deadweight, or about 100,000 gross tons measurement, Capesize cruise ships are of basically the same size, The first Capesize cruise ships were actually built in the 1930s, with the delivery of  Normandie for the French Lines and Cunard Line’s Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. These three North Atlantic express passenger ships were all too long and to wide to be able to use the Panama Canal, and were the largest ships to have been built to that time.

To-day’s Capesize cruise fleet thus numbers forty-seven ships either in service or on order. Starting with the 5,400 lower berth Oasis and Allure of the Seas, they work down through a quintet (the largest cruise ship order ever placed) of the 2,850-berth Celebrity Solstice class, a quartet of 3,100-passenger ships consisting of the Voyager of the Seas class, and three trios, the 3,600-passenger Freedom of the Seas class, 3,500-guest MSC Fantasia class and the 3,100-berth Carnival Dream class.

Then follow another pair, Disney Dream and sister, and the one-off 4,200-berth Norwegian Epic (which was to have been part of a pair until her sister ship was cancelled), to be introduced next week, and Queen Mary 2, another one-off, and one with a lot more space with only 2,620 lower berths. These ships are all above 1,000 feet in overall length and only one, Voyager of the Seas of 1999, was delivered before the year 2000.

To be added to these are twenty-two more. The eleven ships of the Carnival Conquest (six) and Costa Concordia (five) classes, all 952 by 116 feet in overall dimensions, are ten feet too wide for the present Panama Canal. Eleven more ships, of the Grand Princess class, including P&O’s Azura and Ventura, all 951 x 118 feet, also fall into this category. These twenty-two Carnival Corp & PLC ships were built to a short and stout design that precludes them from passing through the present Panama Canal, and they are all products of the Fincantieri shipyards in Italy. Only one of this lot, Grand Princess of 1998, was delivered before the year 2000.

So of the 118 cruise ships delivered since 2000 sixty-seven, or more than half, are too big to transit the Panama Canal.

The Panamax Ships
The next category down is Panamax, which is the maximum size ship that can use the Panama Canal (although new locks are due to open in 2015). Cargoes carried by Panamax ships are generally a little higher value and include grain, steel and minerals as well as thermal coal and iron ore. And Panamax cruise ships are more likely to feature alternative restaurants and big shows than ziplines and roller coasters. In fact, many offer more than just a repetitive 7-day itinerary and are more likely to be found on alternating 10-day circuits in the Mediterranean as just one example.
These ships have a maximum length overall of 965 feet and a beam of 106 feet and are able to squeeze through the present locks. This size is ideal for World Cruises as well, and can reposition easily between Alaska and the Caribbean. For example, where Queen Victoria and the new Queen Elizabeth can offer world cruises that transit both Panama and Suez, Queen Mary 2 is forced to sail all the way around the tip of South America to get from the Atlantic to the Pacific as she is too big for the Panama Canal.

The Panamax cruise fleet numbers eighty ships. Owners such as Norwegian Cruise Line (and its once-parent Star Cruises) made sure they did not build wider than Panamax and so this fleet includes half a dozen Meyer-built vessels of dimensions of 965 by 106 feet, while Celebrity Cruises has four St Nazaire-built ships of the same dimensions in the Celebrity Constellation class and Princess Cruises two St Nazaire-built ships of the Coral Princess class. To these can be added Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria, all of maximum Panamax dimensions.

Following closely behind are the four ships of the MSC Musica class, all just a foot shorter than Panamax, and the four Royal Caribbean ships of the Radiance of the Seas class, three feet shorter. Following at 960 feet are the four Carnival Spirit class and two ships each of the Costa Atlantica and Costa Luminosa classes. At 936 feet, or 29 feet short of Panamax are half a dozen Holland America ships, from the 2002-built Zuiderdam to this year’s Nieuw Amsterdam. Royal Caribbean’s five 915-foot "Vision" class ships (not including the now-lengthened Enchantment of the Seas) and the 921-foot Pride of America, complete the Panamax class above 900 feet.
Fully another forty ships follow at between 800 and 900 feet and Panamax beam, representing Carnival, Celebrity, Costa, NCL, P&O, TUI Cruises and at the lower end in terms of length, the ships of Aida Cruises (half a dozen at 817 feet), P&O Australia (three at 805-810 feet) and the Crystal Serenity at 820 feet.
There have been one or two exceptions to the maximum Panamax length of 965 feet. The laid-up s.s. United States, for example, was constructed in 1952 to be able to transit the Panama in an emergency, but her overall length is 990 feet. A couple of other ships to-day, the 990-foot Enchantment of the Seas, which was lengthened in 2005, gets around this as her bow was redesigned when she was lengthened to that it can be hinged up to bring her overall length down to 965 feet. The 970-foot Utopia, to be delivered in 2013, is the other.

The New Panama Canal
However ships may be classified today, the present Panamax definition will become redundant in five years when a third lane of locks is opened on the Panama. These new locks will allow ships of up to 1200 feet length overall by 167 feet in beam and up to 49.9 feet in draft to transit the canal. Essentially, this will allow most of the world cruise ship fleet to transit Panama.

There are sure to be some exceptions, however, as with the five largest units of the Royal Caribbean fleet their maximum width at the level of the bridge wings is 226 feet for the Oasis and Allure of the Seas and 184 feet for the Freedom class ships. This could leave the five Royal Caribbean ships as the last of the Capesize cruise ships, unable to use the new locks. How many other cruise ships might be affected is not yet clear.

 
Meanwhile, Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 may be able to conduct her world cruises using the Panama Canal after 2015, although that is not yet clear. One factor, that might also affect other cruise ships, is the height of the Bridge of the Americas at the Pacific end of the canal, which has a clearance under the main span of 201 feet at high tide. By comparison, the clearance under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge at the approach to New York is 228 feet, and Queen Mary 2 clears this bridge by only 13 feet.
This means she could be about fourteen feet too tall for the Panama Canal unless some height can be obtained from masts or her funnel, which was specifically designed to the maximum height to pass under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. By comparison the maximum height of the Queen Victoria is 179 feet from keel to top of the highest mast.

Handysize Ships
The next designation of cargo ships, called Handysize, carries all sorts of cargoes to and from ports all over the world, and again usually cargoes with higher values than either the Capesize or Panamax ships, including the likes of steel, project cargoes, copper, zinc and other valuable metals. Such ships are designed to maximum dimensions and maximum capacity to allow them to serve the vast majority of the world’s ports.

Within this grouping will be found all the traditional style cruise ships that we were used to until just a decade ago plus some new ships. Some examples of ships in this category, mostly ranging in the 600 and 700-foot overall length brackets, include the fleets of Azamara Cruises, Fred Olsen Cruises, Oceania Cruises, Phoenix Reisen, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, plus the most recent newbuildings of Seabourn and Silversea.

One point about all these fleets is that none of them do repetitive 7-day itineraries, which is the wont of the larger ships, and they offer itineraries worldwide that change according to the season, many of them never repeating an itinerary in a year.
A mixture of traditional and upmarket ships, the more traditional ones do not include many balconies but the newer middle-range ships such as the eight former Renaissance ships (now with Azamara, Oceania and Princess, with one to go to P&O soon as Adonia) offer a more discerning product. The new ships of Seabourn and Silversea, however, together with Hapag-Lloyd Cruises’ Europa, serve the most discerning market of all with not only balconies but the best of on-board facilities.

These are indeed the finest cruise ships in the world, paying attention to every detail of service. They also cost more and attract a different clientele.

Small Ships
As well as the larger ships, there is a wide variety of small ships, ranging from the myriad of new river ships to the daily mail boat from Bergen to the North Cape to ships such as Cruise West’s Spirit of Oceanus, which now completes a globe-spanning world cruise of 335 days every year and a large fleet of expedition ships sailing to the Antarctic, the Amazon to Peru and the Northwest Passage, not to mention Alaska, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands.
But that, as they say, is another story for another day.

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A New Concept in World Cruising

Cruise West, Princess Cruises, World | Posted by cruisepeople
Nov 09 2009

Cruise West recently announced a new cruising concept that will see its Spirit of Oceanus follow in the wake of Stella Polaris, that for so many years cruised the world in luxury carrying no more than 199 guests. Now, the similar-sized Spirit of Oceanus will start a 335-day circumnavigation in March 2010 carrying just 114 passengers.

While most world cruises typically leave in the first week of January, Princess is also experimenting with cruises that leave outside the usual sailing dates and have a 104-day world cruise planned for  Dawn Princess, for example, which left Sydney in an eastbound direction on July 5.
Seabourn will also conduct its first world cruise, a 108-day affair, leaving on January 5 next year, after they take delivery this month of its new 450-passenger Seabourn Odyssey. But unless one considers the privately-owned suites on board The World of Residensea to be the equivalent of a cruise ship, no one is doing what Cruise West is doing, taking almost a year to circumnavigate the Earth.

Two World Cruisers
An interesting comparison can be made of Spirit of Oceanus with the old Stella Polaris. Of generally similar size, both were first delivered to Norwegian owners and both powered by twin Burmeister & Wain diesel engines, even if built 64 years apart!
Stella Polaris measured 5,209 gross tons. Delivered by AB Götaverken, Gothenburg in February 1927, she had dimensions of 360.5′ x 50′ x 30′, and was powered by twin 8-cylinder B&W diesels delivering 5,250 brake horsepower and a speed of15.6 knots. She carried 199 passengers, later modified to 155. Built for the Bergen Line, Bergen, she passed to Clipper Cruises in 1952.
Spirit of Oceanus measures 4,200 gross tons. Delivered by Nuovi Cantieri Apuania, Italy, in January 1991, she has dimensions of 295.5′ x 50.1′ x 28.2′, she is powered by twin 8 cylinder B&W diesels delivering 5,000 brake horsepower and a speed of 16 knots. She now carries 120 passengers. Built for Fernley & Eger, Oslo, she passed to Cruise West in 2001.
With her yacht-like bowsprit, Stella Polaris was quite a bit longer than Spirit of Oceanus but the two ships hull dimensions would be fairly similar. Spirit of Oceanus also has a zodiac launching platform astern and a new owners suite installed on the top deck above the bridge.

The Story of Stella Polaris
After being delivered in early 1927 to the Bergen Line, a company founded in 1851. The Bergen Line would later become one of the three founders of the Royal Viking Line. On her arrival on the scene, Stella Polaris became one of the world’s most luxurious cruise ships, embarking once a year on a full world cruise that left New York in January after a Christmas cruise to the Caribbean. There, along with the British-flag Arandora Star and Vandyck and Canadian Pacific’s Duchess of Richmond, she became one of the first cruise ships to call on Miami. During the summer months she cruised in Europe, usually to the North Cape and Norwegian fjords, which she did until 1939. In 1940, she was seized by the Germans and used as a recreation ship for U-Boat crews.
After the war, the Bergen Line sent Stella Polaris back to Gotaverken for an almost complete rebuild and she re-entered service on the same formula until being sold to the Clipper Line of Sweden in 1952, when her capacity was reduced to 155. In 1969, Clipper sold her to Japanese interests who used her as a floating hotel and later restaurant at Kisho Nishiura. Repurchased by Swedish interests in August 2006, she unfortunately sank in Japanese waters the next month while being towed to a shipyard to equip her for the long tow back to Stockholm, where she was to have been used as a floating hotel and restaurant.

Spirit of Oceanus The Story of Stella Polaris
Spirit of Oceanus was one of eight luxury cruise ships completed for Fearnley & Eger, Norwegian shipowners that dated back to 1869. Two sets of four ships each were built in two different shipyards for a new cruising company called Renaissance Cruises and the one that became Spirit of Oceanus was delivered as Renaissance V in 1991 . Fearnley & Eger had earlier been involved in the cruise market through a partnership in Flagship Cruises, which built two ships for the New York-Bermuda market and later purchased Swedish American’s Kungsholm. All three were later sold to P&O for their Princess Cruises division.
Fearnley & Eger had also converted one of its own roro ferries into the cruise ship Explorer Starship to trade in Alaska. This ship became better known later as Song of Flower. But the delivery of eight ships in such a short period unfortunately led to the demise of Fearnley & Eger. Renaissance Cruises would survive under different ownership until a similarly ambitious scheme to build eight larger cruise ships in turn bankrupted them in 2001.
Having been owned by Sun Cruises and then Star Cruises, Spirit of Oceanus was finally acquired by Cruise West in 2001, becoming the largest ship in their fleet of Alaska small ships.
Until now, Cruise West has been sending  Spirit of Oceanus to the South Pacific, Japan and the Far East during the North American winter season, but with the recent downturn in the Alaska market, the cruise line has come up with an entirely different programme for 2010.

Voyages of the Great Explorers
Cruise West has divided this epic voyage into six sectors that it calls "chapters," one each in relation to Marco Polo, Odysseus and the Phoenicians, Leif Eriksson, Columbus, Cook and Magellan, offering in total 24 cruises that start from $4,995 per person.
Chapter 1: Marco Polo – March 6 – May 5, 2010. Four enticing voyages recall the ancient trade routes from Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean Sea. Departing Singapore, these itineraries visit Thailand and Burma before exploring the Indian sub-continent and Sri Lanka. Then it’s on to historic Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Jordan and Egypt, before concluding in Alexandria.
Chapter 2: Odysseus and the Phoenicians – May 5 – July 20, 2010. These six voyages explore sun-drenched islands where gods and goddesses once meddled in the affairs of mortals. Beginning in Alexandria, the ship sails to mythic destinations in Greece and Turkey while guests can also visit Tunis, Algeria, Italy, Sicily, Malta, Spain and Portugal before arriving in Honfleur, France.
Chapter 3: Leif Eriksson – July 20 – September 8, 2010. Inspired by the heroic exploits of the Vikings, these three voyages combine glaciers, capital cities, and days at sea between two continents. Departing Honfleur, France, explore Ireland, the Orkney Isles and Scandinavia as well as the enchanting cities of Tallinn, St. Petersburg, London and Edinburgh. Crossing the Atlantic, she stops in Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands before ending up in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Chapter 4: Christopher Columbus – September 8 – November 2, 2010. Five memorable voyages bring the New World into a new perspective. Depart St. John’s, Newfoundland and cruise along the Atlantic coastline, and transit the Panama Canal. With the ease offered on a small ship, explore the tropical rainforests of Panama and Costa Rica before disembarking in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Extensions are available to the Galapagos Islands and Machu Pichu.
Chapter 5: James Cook – November 2, 2010 – January 19, 2011. Cruise the South Pacific from Easter Island to Darwin, in waters Captain Cook once charted. Unknown to many, Cook had also surveyed the waters of the Gulf of St Lawrence off Newfoundland, where Spirit of Oceanus sailed before heading south again. These five voyages feature remote islands with pristine beaches, fabulous snorkelling and fascinating local cultures in Easter Island, Polynesia, New Guinea, the Cook Islands, New Zealand and Australia, ending in Darwin.
Chapter 6: Ferdinand Magellan – January 19 – February 3, 2011. The final chapter of the Voyages of the Great Explorers departs from Darwin bound for the port where the journey began in Singapore. Along the way explore intriguing cultures throughout Indonesia that combine Hindu, Islam, Western and indigenous influences, and wildlife ranging from the extraordinarily beautiful to the wonderfully bizarre.
Guests booking the full 335 days, visiting 242 ports in 59 countries, will also be given First Class air fare to and from Singapore. The exploration-style journey will include 85 UNESCO World Heritage sites and cross fourteen seas and oceans, and transit three canals — Suez, Corinth and Panama.
The all-suite Spirit of Oceanus is Cruise West’s most spacious and luxurious ship. Each suite offers spacious closets, a large marble bathroom, sitting area and television. Two lounges, an outside bistro and an open-sitting dining room provide a casual onboard atmosphere. Seven suite categories are offered, including fourteen with private balconies and one spacious Owner’s Suite on the ship’s Sun Deck. Both her masters come from world-circling backgrounds with Cunard Line and Hapag-Lloyd Cruises, two of the earliest promoters of world cruises.

Other World Cruise Concepts
In 1999, in order to celebrate the Millennium, the World Cruise Company introduced a single ship intended to make three world cruises a year, of 127, 116 and 118 days, according to the season. Starting with Ocean Explorer I, the venture was hit by a spike in the price of oil that cost it $1 million a circumnavigation. Although the line then chartered smaller, less fuel-thirsty ships, it had not hedged against the rising cost of fuel and ended up in bankruptcy in 2000, taking associated Toronto-based adventure company Marine Expeditions down with it in 2001.
A similarly unsuccessful UK company, Travelscope, succeeded in selling out a few world cruises on out of season dates, using first  Athena and then Van Gogh in The venture, although it stumbled along for a while as Van Gogh Cruises after a ship arrest in 2007, eventually went bankrupt in early 2008. Other mooted ventures did not even get started.
Some of the more successful lines, however, have also from time to time set off on world cruises outside the usual leaving time of the first week of January.  Dawn Princess, for example, will leave Sydney once again, in a westbound direction this time, on May 21, 2010. How many from the northern hemisphere might want to join a world cruise in Sydney is an interesting point, but of course only so many book the full cruise. Dawn Princess is one of two Princess ships that are now based year-round in Australia.
While 335 days may be a bit too much for most world cruisers, Spirit of Oceanus voyage, divided into 24 cruises with 242 port calls, does offer a tremendous opportunity for explorers who might wish to see parts of the world they have never seen before. Following on the 100th Anniversary of the first world cruise, which was performed in 1909 by the Hamburg America Line’s Cleveland, it will be interesting to see whether Spirit of Oceanus will now develop a following similar to  Stella Polaris, and whether this voyage will become an annual event.

(By Kind Permission of Mark Tré – Cybercruises.com)

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Expedition Cruising – Is Antarctica Getting Too Crowded?

Alaska Cruises, Antarctica, Celebrity Cruises, Cruise West, Crystal Cruises, Deilmann Cruises, Discovery World Cruises, Expedition Cruises, Transocean Tours | Posted by cruisepeople
Aug 19 2008

More Cruisers for Antarctica
During the 2006/07 Antarctic season 9,693 Americans, 4,518 Brits, 4,082 Germans and 2,756 Australians landed in Antarctica out of a total of 29,576. The 2007/08 total is expected to be around 34,000. With Silversea recently introducing its Prince Albert II, Lindblad Expeditions National Geographic Explorer and GAP Adventures buying a ship to replace its own Explorer, lost in the Antarctic last November, there is much new for visitors to the Antarctic.
New money is also going into the expedition business and main line cruise operators are planning a "scenic" invasion that could see close to 50,000 tourists sail to the seventh continent next year. But one question remains. What if there is an accident?
New Expedition Ships
Last week brought news that GAP Adventures of Toronto had purchased the 345-foot Viking Line ferry Alandsfarjan for $2.6 million. GAP intends to convert the 6,172-ton Ice Class 1B Swedish ferry, into an expedition ship that will replace its ill-fated 108-passenger Explorer, lost in Antarctic waters in November.
This year, GAP chartered the 98-passenger Russian ship Polaris, a near-sister to the original Explorer, as a stop-gap measure. As presently configured with bow and stern doors and car decks, as well as no major overnight accommodation, the new 1972-built acquisition will need some major conversion work before she can go into service as an expedition ship.
Meanwhile, the inaugural voyage of Silversea Cruises’ first expedition ship, the 120-passenger Prince Albert II, has left Londonfor islands of the Atlantic, Norway and Spitsbergen.
Acquired last year from Sembawang Shipyards in Singapore, the Ice Class 1A 6,072-ton Prince Albert II was previously Society Expeditions’ rather luxurious World Discoverer II, but has lain idle since that company went out of business five years ago. Two weeks after Prince Albert II leaves London, Lindblad Expeditions’ new Ice Class 1A 148-guest National Geographic Explorer enters service.
Formerly Hurtigruten’s 6,167-ton Lyngen, this 1982-built coastal mail boat, has been converted in Las Palmas into a much-reinforced 350-foot expedition ship,  left her old home port of Bergen on June 26 for her own first voyage, to the Norwegian fjords and Spitsbergen.
Meanwhile, Oceanwide Expeditions of the Netherlands is planning to convert the former 2,977-ton Dutch oceanographic ship Tydeman into the 296-foot expedition ship Plancius, full details of which have not yet been announced. For 2008 and 2009, however, they will use the 84-passenger chartered Chilean vessel Antarctic Dream.
Corporate Changes
A lot has also happened recently in terms of the ownership of expedition companies, particularly as First Choice Holidays, the UK holiday company that is now part of Germany’s TUI, has acquired a fistful of expedition companies, not only marine but also land-based, in a move to diversify away from mainstream travel.
It started with First Choice’s £19.5 million acquisition of Melbourne-based Peregrine Adventures in November 2005, along with the operation of the 110-passenger Akademik Ioffe and Akademik Sergey Vavilov. The very next month First Choice announced the purchase of St Louis-based INTRAV, operating the 122-guest Clipper Adventurer and 128-berth Clipper Odyssey (as well as the smaller US-flag Nantucket Clipper and Yorktown Clipper, which were sold on to Cruise West).
Finally, last May, when Quark Expeditions founder Lars Wikander announced his retirement, First Choice revealed that it was also buying Connecticut-based Quark, whose fleet consisted of one owned ship, the 82-passenger Ocean Nova, and a number of chartered Russian and Ukrainian ships. These included the 120-passenger icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov, the 110-berth Lyubov Orlova, the 50-passenger Akademik Shokalskiy and Professor Multanovskiy,and the 100-passenger nuclear icebreaker Yamal, which it uses for one or two voyages to the North Pole every year.
All previous operations of Peregrine and Clipper have now been brought together under Quark, which has gained new offices in Melbourne and St Louis.
By summer, Quark sublets the Lyubov Orlova to Cruise North Expeditions of Toronto, which offers cruises from Kuujjuaq, Quebec, (formerly Fort Chimo) to Baffin Island and Hudson Bay.
Cruise North is owned by Makkovik Corporation, a native company, and had previously used the 66-passenger Argentine ship Ushuaia. A few days after announcing its acquisition of Quark, First Choice announced that the sale of Clipper Adventurer and Clipper Odyssey to International Shipping Partners (ISP) of Miami, but with the charter back of  Clipper Adventurer for the next five Antarctic seasons.  Clipper Odyssey will be used by Zegrahm Expeditions of Seattle and Noble Caledonia of London.
ISP itself has greatly expanded its own activities in the small ship sector, particularly in connection with the Clipper Group of Denmark.
It also manages the 112-passenger Island Sky for Noble Caledonia, the 60-passenger Quest for Polar Quest of Gothenburg and the 112-berth Corinthian II, which will sail the Antarctic for Travel Dynamics of New York, in addition to Quark’s Ocean Nova, a near sister of the Quest.
As well as these smaller vessels, over the past year Clipper, through ISP, has begun to acquire a number of medium-size cruise ships for charter to other operators.
Not related to Quark, but also owned by TUI, is Hapag-Lloyd Cruises, whose four-ship fleet includes two highest ice class expedition ships, the 184-guest Hanseatic and 164-berth Bremen, in the upmarket sector.
With a sale of Hapag-Lloyd AG by TUI now a possibility, its cruise operation, if not included, may soon be in need of a new name. Hapag-Lloyd will perform two Northwest Passage cruises in the summer of 2009, with Hanseatic and Bremen crossing the Canadian Arctic in opposite directions. The pair will meet in Cambridge Bay for a barbecue that will also be attended by the line’s managing director from Hamburg.
Meanwhile, Hapag-Lloyd is so heavily sold out on Antarctica departures that it raises the question of how or when it might add more capacity to fulfil this demand.
At the end of last month, it was announced that KSL Capital Partner had acquired Orion Expedition Cruises of Melbourne, who operate the 106-passenger Ice Class E3 Orion, built in Germany in 2003. The new owners said there would soon be fleet expansion by way of newbuildings and/or second-hand acquisitions.
Orion operates from Australian ports to the Antarctic, the Kimberley, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia and Asia. All these ships carry only 100 or so passengers and are equipped with zodiacs to land their passengers to observe wildlife (including seals, whales and of course the many varieties of penguins), the area’s spectacular scenery and international research stations, many of which are now historic sites.
Big Ships, Inexperienced Crews
The Antarctic tourist season, which normally runs from November to March, has flourished in the past fifteen years, growing from around 6,500 visitors in 1997 to 30,000 in 2007, or five times in a decade.
Part of this huge growth has come from main line cruise operators that operate larger ships than the adventure companies. Beginning in 1993 with Orient Lines’ 848-passenger Marco Polo, now operating for Transocean Tours of Bremen, this grew when the 710-berth Discovery joined her in 2001 after being acquired by Voyages of Discovery.
Two newer Norwegian Hurtigruten ships, the 500-passenger Fram and 690-passenger Nordnorge have also joined this sector. These ships limit the number of passengers they carry in the Antarctic to between 350 and 400 in order to be able to perform landings. Even then, as not all passengers can be landed at one time, they must do so in stages.
Others in this category include Saga, Peter Deilmann and now Transocean.
More recently, lines such as Holland America and Princess, the big two in Alaska, have scheduled cruises to the Antarctic. These larger ships do not offer landings but something they call "scenic cruising" of the "dazzling landscape" of the Antarctic.
This year, Golden Princess carried 2,425 passengers and 1,120 crew to the Antarctic, and her sister ship Star Princess is to do the same in 2009.
Holland America’s Rotterdam, which can carry up to 1,668 passengers, also made a cruise to the Antarctic Peninsula in January. The latest to join the fray, with an announcement last month, is Celebrity Cruises, whose Celebrity Infinity, which can carry up 2,450 passengers, will perform two Antarctic cruises in 2010.
Of the upmarket cruise lines, only Crystal has sent the 960-passenger Crystal Symphony on such "scenic" cruises.
What worries people most about these ships is not just the huge numbers of souls they can carry to isolated locations and the lack of Antarctic knowledge among their officers and crews, but also the fact that the owners of these ships do not feel it is necessary to have double hulls or even ice-strengthening to navigate these waters, not to mention the risk of pollution from the heavy oil that these ships burn as opposed to the lighter diesel used by most expedition ships.
What if there is an accident?
Last year, at about 3 am on November 23, GAP Adventure’s Explorer was holed by ice near King George Island, taking on water and beginning to list.
All 154 passengers and crew were evacuated after about 5 hours in lifeboats and she sank about 15 hours later. The Explorer had been built in 1969 as Lindblad Explorer, the pioneer Antarctica expedition ship, designed for navigating these waters.
Ten years ago, at 1:30 am on December 15, 1998, Royal Caribbean’s Monarch of the Seas struck Proselyte Reef in Great Bay, St Maarten, causing a 130 by 7 foot gash in her starboard hull.
All 2,557 passengers had to be evacuated by tender and flown home after the ship started taking on water.
One of her officers at the time recently told this author that the ship would have sunk had her master not taken quick action to ground her on a nearby sandbank, something that the subsequent investigation said would take a minimum of about 12 hours. Ninety years ago, at about 2 am on October 24, 1918, Canadian Pacific’s Princess Sophia, en route from Skagway to Juneau, Alaska, grounded on Vanderbilt Reef in the Lynn Canal.
All 343 passengers and crew lost their lives 39 hours later after heavy weather prevented rescue efforts and she slipped off the reef and sank in deep water.
Lost in time, this tragedy was completely overshadowed by the end of the First World War a few days later.
In the case of Explorer, winds were not high and there was no fog at the time.
In the case of Monarch of the Seas, despite the large numbers involved, help was as near as the closest shore tender by which the ship’s passengers were rescued.
In the case of Princess Sophia, though, even though she was in isolated waters, help was at hand. But over a period of almost two days the weather prevented anyone from being rescued before she sank, taking all with her within sight of land.
As it happens, as National Geographic Explorer is in drydock at Las Palmas, her 110-berth fleetmate National Geographic Endeavour is also there, undergoing some work of her own.
She had participated along with the Nordnorge in the Explorer rescue in November. As for  Nordnorge, the Explorer rescue was actually her second of the year, as in January she had been called to evacuate 294 passengers from her sister ship Nordkapp after she ran aground off Deception Island, something that forced the cancellation of the rest of her 2007 season.
And just this January, Hurtigruten gave 50% refunds to passengers of  Fram, the Nordkapp‘s replacement, after her engines failed and she drifted into ice at Brown’s Bluff during her Christmas cruise to Antarctica.
After receiving ice damage to one of her lifeboats, she had to cancel her subsequent cruise as well.
As well as the natural threats of wind, weather, ice and grounding, not to mention machinery failure, there is the hazard of fire. In March 2006,Star Princess, which is scheduled to sail to Antarctica in 2009, suffered a fire in which one died and eleven were injured.
At the time, she was sailing between Grand Cayman and Jamaica and help was nearby.
But in Antarctica help can be 36 to 48 hours away across the Drake Passage, one of the roughest stretches of water in the world. To quote a cruise expert who has sent many adventurers to the Antarctic, "When Explorer sank they had just 154 people to rescue. Twenty times that many would be a catastrophe."
To send ships to the Antarctic without double hulls, let alone any ice strengthening, is probably begging for something to happen and it might behoove the 46 nation members of the Antarctic Treaty Organization to have a look at this.
There is a saying in shipping that the more times you move something, the more chance there is of damaging it, and the same holds true of ships.
The International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO), possibly in an attempt to be able to control them, has allowed the owners of larger cruise ships to become members. In an effort to do so, since 2001 it has required that ships carrying more than 500 passengers make no landings in the Antarctic.
IAATO, founded by seven private members in 1991, now consists of 104 private companies, 44 of which are full members and five of these are cruise lines.
There is a precedent that some IAATO members already have to follow at the other end of the world. A good set of regulations exists in Canada, which has its own set of rules for Arctic waters. Called the Arctic Ice Regime Shipping System, it was designed to enforce the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act of 1970.
Although the Arctic suffers from multi-year pack ice, it includes areas that have only seasonal ice and the scheme, whlle complicated, may be worth a look.
But the main question is should ships with no ice strengthening be allowed to cruise the Antarctic?
(Source: By Mark Tré – Cybercruises.com)

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Cruise West 2008

Cruise West, News, South Pacific, Special Cruise Offers | Posted by cruisepeople
May 31 2007

Kindly note: All rates $US

he small-ship cruise line, Cruise West, is offering early booking savings of up to $US800 on three distinct voyages of discovery in the South Pacific in 2008.
Passengers who book their trips by June 15, 2007, will save $600 per person on the cruise, plus an additional $200 if payment is made in full by this same date.
Travellers who book by September 7, 2007, will save $300 per person, and an additional $100 if payment is made in full by this date.

In January through March, Cruise West’s flagship, the 120-passenger Spirit of Oceanus, will journey through the tiny atolls, remote villages and untouched treasures of the islands of the South Pacific. Cruise West’s up-close, casual and personal style of small-ship cruising provides the opportunity to explore remote ports and islands that larger ships cannot access, and to leave each destination with only footprints behind.

~2008 SOUTH PACIFIC ITINERARIES~ Spirit of Oceanus

Polynesia and Melanesia are explored on Cruise West’s aptly named Pearls of Polynesia itinerary. This 12-night sailing between Fiji and Papeete visits Beqa, Fiji, to watch a traditional firewalking ceremony; the Cook Islands including Atiu, “The Land of the Birds,” which is not visited by many other tourists; and Tonga to meet with local villagers, participate in a kava ceremony and snorkel in the pristine waters.
Pearls of Polynesia travels on January 23 and February 26, 2008, priced as low as $5,049 per person with the maximum early booking savings. Standard pricing starts at $5,849 per person, based on double occupancy.

Naturalists will be in paradise on the 11-night Island Sanctuaries itinerary, which visits the remote oases of French Polynesia. On this round trip journey from Papeete, passengers will snorkel in Rangiroa, the second largest atoll in the world; visit a local pearl farm in Takapoto; and travel through the Marquesas Islands to meet with villagers and explore the plush terrain.
This itinerary sails on February 2 and 12, 2008, and is priced as low as $3,749 per person with the maximum early booking savings. Standard pricing starts at $4,549 per person, based on double occupancy. Post-cruise extension to the remote Easter Island is available on February 2 departure only.

The 16-night Legends of the Pacific sailing explores the islands of Micronesia, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, travelling between Guam and Fiji. Spirit of Oceanus will bring passengers to areas seldom visited by other travellers, on an insider’s expedition of native villages, World War II sites and tiny islands. Highlights include snorkelling at Tonoas Island, the centre for the Japanese Navy during WWII; meeting with native villagers throughout the islands and enjoying performances of their traditional dance and song; and visiting the tropical forest of Pohnpei Island which is home to 40 species of birds, reptiles and deer.
This itinerary will sail on January 7 and March 11, 2008, and is priced as low as $5,999 per person with the maximum early booking savings. Standard pricing starts at $6,799 per person, based on double occupancy.

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